'This is for all of us'

As the sun began to set outside, students trickled into the Center for the Arts Isabella Cannon Room. Some danced around as Chappell Roan’s “HOT TO GO!” played through the speakers, while others quietly observed the artwork displays on the wall. On the other side of the room, a series of posters prompted attendees to think about their relationship with LGBTQ+ art. One asks, “who are your favorite queer artists?” 

A yellow sticky note in the bottom right corner reads, “me."

This was the opening ceremony of “Breakthrough,” a three-day, student-run LGBTQ+ arts festival at Elon University from Feb. 23 to 25. 

"Breakthrough"

Senior Danny Gutierrez was behind one of the two visual art displays presented at the festival. As a transgender person of color, Danny said his artwork is often viewed as being from either a trans artist or a Mexican artist — rather than being interpreted as works that are intersectional of his marginalized identities. 

“I have experienced a lot of situations in white, queer spaces where a white person will try very, very hard to relate to what my experience is like. And while yes, we are both queer, my queerness is also veiled culturally,” Gutierrez said. “That adds a whole different layer to my queerness. … I make art for the two people of color in the room.”

One of the goals of “Breakthrough,” according to Verrecchia, was to “unify” the LGBTQ+ communities on campus. Gutierrez said throughout their time at Elon, they’ve noticed LGBTQ+ students in the same major or department often form their own groups, which can be isolating to students in the outgroup. Jack Morrill ’23 observed this throughout their Elon experience as well. 

“I just remember leaving Elon being like ‘I wish it was more connected,’” Morrill said. 

This train of thought was a factor in the creation of “Luminosity” in 2023.

“Queering the process”

Beyond creating spaces for and telling stories about LGBTQ+ communities, “Queering the Stage” also focuses on bringing queer theory to the process of creating, producing and directing. 

“When we talk about queer arts, obviously, we want to explore different identities and allow these queer artists to portray their work,” Verrecchia said. “But it's also about finding those non-normative ways to create art and how we can create a facility within the art space that is welcoming to everyone, that's inclusive, that makes everyone feel like they're meant to be there and meant to be a part of this.” 

According to a library guide from Indiana University Bloomington, queer theory is “a way of thinking that dismantles traditional assumptions about gender and sexual identities, challenges traditional academic approaches, and fights against social inequality.”

The guide outlines how “queering” is not necessarily about pushing a particular identity, or set of identities, but rather exploring non-normative practices and possibilities. While Morrill’s research focused on incorporating elements of queer theory into arts administration practices, Huestis said it can also be embodied on an individual level. 

“Queering the process to me is about freedom and it's about forgetting all of the systems that have been put in place to bring us down. It's about telling them no, and saying, ‘This is my space. This is my time, and I'm allowed to take it up. And I'm allowed to be free and I'm allowed to create,’” Huestis said. “It is pure joy that nothing can be compared to, it's limitless.”

One of the ways queer theory was incorporated into “Breakthrough” was through the process of lighting senior Jessica Werfel’s dance piece “The Stranger in Yourself.” Bobzien said the choreographer will traditionally share the dance with the lighting designer who will then plan the lighting. For Werfel’s piece, the two worked closely to create the lighting design and choreography, incorporating each other's ideas and interpretations. 

“I believe in art that starts conversation and I know all of our art in the festival will start a conversation,” Bobzien said.

The role of LGBTQ+ art on campus 

Gutierrez knows his art starts conversations — especially after a set of posters he had put up outside Arts West were ripped off of the wall in 2023. Inspired by urban mosaics of fliers and stickers and the confrontational nature of writing on bathroom walls, Guiterrez’ focus is public art.

When he was in Los Angeles for the Elon in LA program over the summer, Guiterrez said he would always stop and read the stickers he saw covering light posts, trash cans and walls. 

“Anyone can see it, anyone can experience it. And so I was really, really interested in the unseriousness of that, and I kind of ran with it,” Guiterrez said. “You never know what the sticker is going to lead you to because so much of it is signaling to the people that know, like ‘If you know, you know.’ So I'm interested in that and the queerness of that, especially as a person of color in the art world.”

One of their goals, Gutierrez said, is to challenge people who encounter their art, whether that’s in public spaces or in a more curated venue, such as “Breakthrough.”

“If I can make someone laugh or think or engage with discomfort, that's a success. If I can make you be like, ‘Whoa, why'd you say that?’ And then have them sit with it and think about it a little bit,” Gutierrez said. “That's an important conversation to have.” 

Gutierrez’ art often explores and comments on their experiences as a trans person of color who was raised Catholic, including a series surrounding a white button down shirt. The shirt’s been delicately transformed to represent top surgery scars. Gutierrez said the project was initially inspired by the song “A Burning Hill” by Mitski: “Today, I will wear my white button-down / I'm tired of wanting more, I think I'm finally worn.”

“Yearning is very relevant to the trans experience and how you're always waiting for the other shoe to drop. But you just kind of have to take life. However it comes to you, no matter what,” Gutierrez said. “I made a shirt with these top surgery scars because I also really connected with the idea of clothing and fabric as a form of gender affirming care.”

On the back of the shirt is a piece of masking tape where Gutierrez wrote in red marker, “I should be dead.”

“It's a hopeful phrase. It's a rebellious phrase,” Gutierrez said. “‘I should be dead’ implies that I have evaded death in some way and that there is a sort of like success in not being dead.”

Junior Laney Lynch’s original play, “Sororophobia,” had a staged reading on the first night of the festival. Lynch said in a previous interview with Elon News Network she was excited to introduce her second play during “Breakthrough” since her first play, “Cardboard Boxes,” was presented for the first time at “Luminosity” and later produced by NewWorks. 

“Sororophobia” explores fourth-wave feminism and “girlhood” through the lens of a middle school friend group, according to Lynch who describes the play as a “camp, dark comedy.”

One of her goals with the play was to humanize childhood female friendships, which she said often get dismissed or looked down on. 

“Women are more than one thing,” Lynch said. “Yes, I can be smart. Yes, I can be kind, but also within me exists everything. Within every woman exists everything.”

She said she also wanted to explore how being LGBTQ+ and navigating self-acceptance can impact childhood friendships. Lynch said she was excited to have an affirming space to share her writing. Lynch also said as an LGBTQ+ artist, she feels like she has to prove her worth in a space, but “Queering the Stage” is somewhere she knew her work could be accepted and celebrated.

When planning “Luminosity,” Morrill said it was important to create a space that not only empowered the audience, but also allowed the process and the presentation of the projects to be affirming for and celebratory of the creatives involved. 

“People want to see themselves in work and do work that they can see themselves in,” Morrill said. “Especially in a festival that is so rooted in just joy and light and by the process where you can do something and it doesn't matter if it's the next biggest thing — it’s your thing and it’s your way of expressing yourself.”

Gutierrez said he hopes the festival, and the LGBTQ+ communities on campus as a whole, continue to become more diverse. He said he hopes LGBTQ+ people of color are not just accepted on campus, but actively celebrated and welcomed. 

“If you’re a person of color that is in the intersections, in the margins, it is very important to not water yourself down for any reason,” Gutierrez said. “It doesn’t matter if you make white people uncomfortable by saying what you say about racism, about your queerness, about your marginalized experiences.”

Morrill said they hope the now-annual LGBTQ+ arts festival continues to embody the diversity and fluidity it represents. Moving forward, Morill hopes Elon students continue to use the festival to meet the needs of the LGBTQ+ communities on campus and let the festival grow and change to fit those needs.

“I hope people just keep exploring it and keep doing whatever they need to do to find and create space for themselves,” Morrill said.

The future of “Queering the Stage”

Verrecchia, who came to Elon from Pennsylvania, said she initially worried she wouldn’t be able to express her LGBTQ+ identity in the South. Attending “Luminosity” her freshman year is one of the reasons she now feels comfortable being openly LGBTQ+ on campus. 

She said she hopes “Breakthrough” had a similar impact on freshmen who attended and said in the future she hopes the LGBTQ+ arts festival becomes a well known Elon staple. 

“That way people who are coming into Elon, who maybe are a little worried like I was  — like, ‘Am I going to find my place? Am I going to find my people?’ — have access to this and they know this is a huge event that we do,” Verrecchia said. 

Another hope for the festival’s future, according to Bobzien, is for it to expand beyond Elon’s campus. This year, that included a guest performance from indie rock singer-songwriter Lacey Wilder.

“As a queer artist getting to perform, and especially getting to be the guest artist at a queer focused event, it's just so amazing,” Wilder said. “This is exactly the kind of audience that I write music for.” 

“As a queer artist getting to perform, and especially getting to be the guest artist at a queer focused event, it's just so amazing,” Wilder said. “This is exactly the kind of audience that I write music for.” 

For the past two years, the festival has been primarily centered around performing arts, but Huestis said she is excited to see what it turns into next year. She also said she hopes the festival continues to explore and build on queer theory. 

“It may be something completely different next year because we have a different need for our community. And I think that's so cool too because that is queerness, it is not going to be consistent. It's not going to be the same. It's going to have space to ebb and flow,” Huestis said. “My hope is that we continue to hold space for queer people and queer art.”

Morrill said no matter what form the festival takes in the future, they hope attendees and participants alike will take the experiences and community values of the festival into their daily lives — even after they graduate.

“It started at Elon,” Morrill said. “But we all know the world's much bigger than Elon.”